


Like the Wind Needs the Trees

by poisonivory



Category: Batman (Comics), DCU (Comics), Green Arrow (Comics), Red Hood and the Outlaws (Comics), Red Hood/Arsenal (Comics)
Genre: Blow Jobs, Hand Jobs, Hot Dad Roy Harper, Kid Fic, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-06
Updated: 2020-05-06
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:27:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 15,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24046618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poisonivory/pseuds/poisonivory
Summary: It's been a couple years since Jason's seen Roy. He's not prepared for Roy to suddenly have adaughter.He's even less prepared for how that makes him feel.
Relationships: Roy Harper/Jason Todd
Comments: 73
Kudos: 475





	Like the Wind Needs the Trees

**Author's Note:**

> This is like 99% pre-Flashpoint Roy with the barest hat tip to New 52, which is why he has blue eyes and, you know, a daughter. Also all I want in life is for Connor and Mia and Cissie and Emiko and Lian to all exist in the same continuity and live in a big house together, so here we are. Also also, I am a shameless Oliver Queen apologist, so sorry about that.
> 
> Thanks to [mizzmarvel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mizzmarvel/pseuds/mizzmarvel) for the beta! The title is from "Come Back from San Francisco" by the Magnetic Fields.

Jason pushed his sunglasses up onto his forehead and checked the address again. It was a nicer neighborhood than he had expected—quiet, middle class, sensible family cars parked nose to tail along the steep angles of Star City’s streets. But Barbara had gotten the address for him, and even though she didn’t like him very much, he’d never known her to be wrong.

He took advantage of a friendly neighbor coming out of the front door to get into the apartment building, with a jaunty wave and his best “Wayne Industries fundraiser” smile pasted on. There was no elevator, so he climbed the stairs to the fourth floor, feeling his boots get heavier with every step. In a city with hills like this, to put apartments on the fourth floor without an elevator had to be some kind of sadistic torture.

Apartment 41. He rang the doorbell and waited.

Footsteps from the other side of the door. A pause as the peephole was checked. A surprised noise. Jason counted as one, two, three locks were opened, and the door was flung open.

He smiled. “Hi, buddy.”

“Jason!” Roy flung his arms around Jason, hauling him into a hug that practically lifted Jason off the ground. Jason let him, hiding his smile. Two years’ absence or not, Roy was just about the only person who could grab Jason without warning and not suffer for it, except Kori and maybe Dick on a good day.

“How the fuck are you, Jaybird?” Roy asked, letting him go and holding him at arm’s length to study him. “I haven’t seen you in—what, two years?”

Roy looked good. He’d buzzed his hair short, which gave him a more clean-cut look than Jason was used to, even with a day’s growth of stubble on his chin and the tattoos peeking out of the tight sleeves of his threadbare Great Frog t-shirt.

“Well, I’m alive, so I’m calling it a win,” Jason said with a rueful smile. Roy was right—it had been a little more than two years of nonstop jobs, sidetracks, and the occasional begrudgingly accepted assignment from Bruce. He’d barely been in the States in all that time, and Roy had been weirdly off the radar, and somehow before he knew it Jason had let years go by without seeing one of the very few people he’d actually call a friend.

But now he was free for the foreseeable future. So when the first flight back to the States that came up on his travel app was to Star City, he’d taken it as a sign that it was time to stop by for a visit. He wasn’t sure why Roy had settled so close to Ollie, but hell, Jason’s home base was _Gotham_ , so who was he to throw stones?

“Yeah, I’m pro you being alive. Strongly in favor of that.” Roy’s smile was soft and fond and it made something under Jason’s skin itch.

“What about you?” he asked. “Settling down in Star City? What, you picking up the old feathered Speedy hat again?”

“Uh, not exactly.” Roy let go of Jason to rub the back of his neck. “See, I kinda have—”

“Daddy?”

A little head peeked around the corner at them. Dark hair in pigtails, dark eyes, but something very familiar about her nose and chin. Something very _Roy_.

“—some news,” Roy concluded, gesturing back at her.

Holy shit.

“Hey, etai yazi, c’mere,” Roy said. The little girl walked over to them and Roy scooped her up and settled her on his hip. “This is my daughter, Lian.”

Holy _shit_.

“Uh…” Jason stared at the kid. The kid stared back at him.

“Lian, this is my friend Jason,” Roy said. “Do you know who that is?” Lian shook her head, still staring at Jason. “He’s Uncle Dick’s brother.”

Jason blinked. Dick knew Roy had a kid? He’d been in contact with Dick off and on these past two years, and Dick had never said a word.

Lian frowned, apparently working this out. “Like Uncle Connor is your brother?”

“Yep, exactly like that,” Roy said. “Daddy and Uncle Jason used to have adventures with Aunt Kori.”

 _Kori_ knew Roy had a kid? Jesus, was everyone in on this except Jason?

“Can you say hi to Uncle Jay, Lian?”

“Hi,” Lian mumbled, and hid her face in Roy’s shoulder.

“Can you say hi to Lian, Uncle Jay?” Roy asked, sounding amused, and Jason realized he’d been standing there with his mouth hanging open since Lian had appeared.

“Uh...hi, Lian,” he said, and Lian turned her head just enough to peek at him with one eye. “Nice to...meet you?” Shit, what did you say to kids? Something about Pokemon?

Roy laughed. “Hey, come on in, let’s not keep standing in the hall.” He ushered Jason in and closed the door behind him. “You want a cup of coffee?”

“I would commit murd—” Jason’s eyes fell on Lian. “—mayhem for a cup of coffee.”

“Well, we can’t have you getting arrested for first degree mayhem.” Roy put Lian down. “Go finish your coloring, scoot,” he said, giving her a little pat on the bottom, and she went running down the hall. “Here, kitchen’s this way.”

Once they were inside the apartment, it was painfully obvious that a small child lived there. There was a little pink tricycle and helmet in the hall, scattered Legos and a laundry basket full of impossibly tiny socks in the living room, and a refrigerator buried under crayon drawings held up by bright alphabet magnets. The apartment was open plan, and Jason noticed that Roy kept one eye on Lian as he measured out coffee grounds and filled the machine with water.

“Okay,” Roy said, as Jason leaned against the counter and watched him. “Go ahead.”

“Go ahead?” Jason repeated.

“Ask.”

There it was. “Uh, what the fuck?” Jason asked, and then cringed and looked over at Lian, who didn’t seem to have heard him.

Roy shrugged. “It’s too late, she has a mouth like a sailor. My fault.”

“Okay. What the fuck?” Jason said again. “I’m not exactly the kid whisperer, but she’s older than two, isn’t she?”

“Just turned four.”

“So what, you just never mentioned you had a kid?” Jason wasn’t sure why it stung so much. God knew he kept enough secrets from Roy. But Roy had always been so much more open than Jason was.

“I didn’t know!” Roy protested. “You remember Jade?”

“How could I forget?” Jason drawled. When they’d first teamed up, Roy had just gotten out of a relationship so messy it made _Jason_ look stable. Jason had heard more than he ever wanted to know about the beautiful, deadly, tragically totally batshit Jade. “Wait—she’s the mom?”

Roy nodded. “Right after you left for that thing in Bialya, I got a call from her. Lian was just under two then. I don’t know why Jade decided to finally tell me, but…” He shook his head. “Anyway. Jade is, uh, maybe not the most stable authority figure. And that’s coming from _me_. So here we are.” He spread his hands, indicating the plastic plates in the sink, the huge box of Goldfish crackers on the counter, the tiny child humming something Jason vaguely recognized as a Disney song from her little art studio. “It’s been crazy. I had to learn how to cook vegetables, I had to get a _permanent address_ , I had to change my whole life around. But it’s worth it.” His face went soft again. “She’s the best thing that ever happened to me.”

For an inexplicable moment, Jason felt the way he used to sometimes as a kid, before Bruce, when he remembered that other kids didn’t skip meals and had two parents who were usually sober and always home at night. The wild, jealous anger; the feeling of standing outside a door that was only locked to him. The wanting and never having.

“You could have called,” he said, sharper than he’d meant to.

“ _You_ could have called,” Roy shot back. “I had no idea you’d be gone so long. And let me tell you, time flies when you’re doing laundry three times a week and trying to find a babysitter at the last minute so you can stop the mayor from being assassinated by Kobra.” The coffeemaker beeped. Roy took two mugs out of the dish drainer and poured coffee into both of them. He splashed milk into one and handed it to Jason before adding a ludicrous amount of sugar to his own. “Besides, it didn’t feel like a conversation to have over the phone.”

Jason stared at the mug in his hands. It said “World’s Best Daddy” on it. Roy had remembered how he took his coffee. “I guess not.”

“I wanted her to meet you,” Roy said, and Jason looked up to see that Roy’s annoyance had vanished again. “You were the last one left. Now she knows everyone who’s important to me.”

Jason took a sip of his coffee to have an excuse for feeling so warm. “Boy, becoming a father’s really turned you into a fucking sap, huh?” he asked.

“You have no idea,” Roy said. “Put _Bambi_ on, I cry like a goddamn baby.”

Lian’s head shot up. “ _Bambi!_ ” she said.

Roy groaned. “Rule number one: they’re always listening, even when you think they’re not,” he muttered to Jason, then raised his voice back to normal. “Sorry, baby girl, we already had our screen time today, remember?”

Lian scrunched up her face. “ _Fuck_ ,” she said.

Jason burst out laughing as Roy spread his hands helplessly. “See?” he said. “I’m in so much trouble when she starts kindergarten.”

“I think we both could have predicted that your filthy mouth would be your undoing,” Jason said. Roy leered at him, and Jason felt suddenly warm again.

“Hey, where are you staying?” Roy asked. “Because the couch pulls out. I can’t promise there aren’t any Legos in it, but it’s better than some of the shitholes we’ve stayed in.”

“Oh, no—I mean, thanks, but I got a hotel room. By the marina,” Jason said.

“Of course you did.” Roy rolled his eyes affectionately. “You can take the boy out of the mansion…”

“Fuck you, you grew up in a mansion too.”

“Yes, but I absorbed socialist praxis while I was there. In between Ollie buying bigger and bigger boats.” Roy gently kicked Jason’s calf with his bare toes. “Seriously, though, you’re staying in town for a while, right? Or do you have a job?”

“Free as a bird,” Jason assured him. “I’ll need to swing by Gotham eventually, but…” He shrugged. He didn’t need to explain to Roy why he avoided it.

Roy beamed at him. “Good. We can hang out.”

“Sure, although I assume the ordnance will be smaller than usual,” Jason said. “What do parents of small children do for fun, anyway?”

Roy’s grin widened. “Oh, it’s a party.”

*

Jason shoved his hands deeper into his jacket pockets and frowned at the playground in front of him. “I seem to recall being promised a party.”

“Aw, don’t worry, Jaybird, I’ll push you on the swings if you want,” Roy said.

“ _SWINGS!_ ” Lian screeched at an ear-splitting decibel, tugging on Roy’s hand. Roy let her tow him off towards the swing set, and Jason followed in their wake, trying to figure out how he’d gotten here.

He’d spent the night in his ludicrously overpriced hotel room, where the bed was the size of a football field and twice as hard, and the air conditioner had to be broken because no amount of Jason fiddling with the dial or swearing at it in three languages had raised the temperature above nipple-tighteningly frigid. The next morning, over a cup of coffee that wasn’t as good as the one Roy had made but much less free, he’d reached for his phone.

“See? I’m calling,” he said when Roy picked up.

“A man of honor and integrity. What’s up? You have to head back east?”

“Why, you trying to get rid of me?”

“No!” Roy said, so quickly Jason was a little startled. “It’s just...you’re hard to pin down, Jaybird.”

“Like smoke on the breeze,” Jason agreed. “Anyway, you want to hang out?”

There had been a time not that long ago that “hanging out” had meant training, or going to a bar with live music and listening while Roy drank seltzer and complained about the subpar band, or hitting the streets and looking for a fight. Now, apparently, it meant standing back and watching Roy push Lian on the swings while she giggled and kicked her feet.

Jason leaned against the railing that encircled the playground and tried to figure out who had changed: him or Roy. His first instinct was that it was Roy. After all, _Jason_ was still going on jobs. _Jason_ didn’t have an apartment full of stuffed animals or glitter stickers on his phone case. Jason was the same person he’d always been.

But Roy said he was still working. He was clearly in training, since his biceps were still the size of Jason’s head, which was very noticeable any time he pushed the swing or picked Lian up or did anything, really. He still swore like a sailor and laughed with his whole body and treated Jason with the same open, judgment-free warmth he always had.

So if Jason hadn’t changed, and Roy hadn’t changed, why did this feel so different?

A woman in head-to-toe athleisure approached Jason and he suddenly realized how creepy he must look: some random adult man in sunglasses and a leather jacket standing around a playground with no children of his own and weird hair. Shit, did any of his clothing have visible blood stains on it?

But then the woman smiled, and Jason relaxed marginally. He probably wasn’t about to get arrested. Again.

“Hi there,” the woman said. “Which one is yours?”

“Uh.” Jason pointed to Roy before realizing she was probably asking which _kid_ was his. Well. It was still accurate.

Her eyebrows went up and her body language changed subtly—still friendly, but in a different way. “Oh, you’re _Roy’s_ ,” she said, and Jason realized belatedly that she had been flirting, and also that he’d accidentally implied that he and Roy were an item, and also that Roy was on a first name basis with this pretty, yoga pants-wearing woman. He suddenly felt extremely grumpy.

She held out a hand. “I’m Megan,” she said. “My kid’s on the jungle gym, the one in the blue jacket.”

Jason could not care less about her kid, blue-jacketed or otherwise, but he shook her hand. “Jason.”

“Roy’s a wonderful father, isn’t he?” she asked.

It didn’t seem like a good idea to say that he’d only known Roy _was_ a father for twenty-four hours, so Jason nodded. At least it wasn’t a lie—Roy seemed like a pretty great dad from everything Jason had seen, although admittedly Jason’s bar for “decent father” was so low it was practically scraping the ground. “Yeah, he’s the best,” he said.

“How did you two meet?”

There were a lot of potential answers to that question, most of which would get Jason into a lot of trouble. “Old family friends,” he finally said. “Our dads go way back.”

Her eyes lit up. “Oh, so you know all of our mystery man’s secrets.”

Thankfully, Jason was saved by Roy easing Lian’s swing to a stop. “Okay, that’s enough. Don’t want to get into the barfing zone,” Roy said. “Why don’t you go play in the sandbox for a bit?”

“Okay, Daddy.” Lian ran off, weaving a little with dizziness, and Jason suspected Roy had stopped the swing just in time.

Roy joined him and Megan at the fence. The big, bright smile he gave Megan made something behind Jason’s right eye start to hurt. “Hey, Megan, what’s up?”

“Oh, just getting to know Jason here,” she said. “Trying to get him to spill the dirt on you.”

Roy slung an arm around Jason’s shoulders. “Sorry, he’s promised to take it to the grave. Right, Jaybird?”

Roy touching him was not going to correct Megan’s misapprehension, but Jason didn’t move away. He might have, to be perfectly accurate, moved closer. “Seems only fair. You know where all of my skeletons are buried.” Megan didn’t have to know that was literal fact.

“So how long have you two been—” Megan started to say, but was interrupted by two kids suddenly starting a screaming fight over a toy truck. One of them had a blue jacket on. “Oh no, excuse me,” she said, and hurried off.

Roy tilted his head. “She thinks we’re dating, doesn’t she?”

“Sorry, did I ruin your chance with the reigning soccer mom of Star City?” Jason snorted, a little more dismissively than he’d meant to.

Roy drew his arm back, but only enough to put his hand on Jason’s shoulder and turn him so they were facing each other. “Hey, what’s that for?”

Jason knocked Roy’s hand away. Roy did that a lot—held Jason in place so he could _look_ at him. Had he always done that? Had it always made Jason want to hide?

He shoved his hands back into his pockets. He didn’t like it here, suddenly. It was too open, too normal, too… _daytime_. That wasn’t him. It had _never_ been him, not even before Bruce and the crowbar and everything else. He hadn’t thought it was Roy, either.

Once again he had the feeling of looking at something he couldn’t have, something that was so easy for all the Megans of the world and so far outside of the realm of possibility for Jason it was laughable. It made him want to find something to hit.

“Seriously, Jaybird, what’s with you?” Roy asked when Jason didn’t say anything.

Jason sighed. He thought he’d gotten past getting angry about things he couldn’t change. He wasn’t even sure how he _would_ change it, if he could. “Nothing,” he said. “Go ahead, explain it to her. I’ll keep an eye on Lian.”

“Explain...oh. Wait, why do you think I’m interested in Megan?” Roy asked, looking baffled.

Jason raised an eyebrow. “Because she’s hot and you’re you?”

“Excuse you, rude, and also no. I hear enough of the benefits of going paleo making small talk at the playground, I don’t need to hear it in bed,” Roy said. “Besides, I’m not really dating anyone right now. Or looking to, or...you know. Anything.”

“Wait, really?” Jason asked. “ _You?_ Celibate?”

“Wow, good to know how slutty you think I am,” Roy said, with an air of mock offense.

“Hey, you said it, not me.” Jason wouldn’t actually have put it that way. More like...a romantic. Or only happy when he was loving someone as hard as he could.

But also, yeah. Slutty.

“It’s just too complicated, with Lian,” Roy said. “I mean, leaving aside the logistics of finding a babysitter and hoping we don’t get attacked by a supervillain over appetizers and yadda yadda yadda, I don’t love the idea of bringing too many people in and out of her life like that, you know? Like, say I date someone for six months and then we break up. That’s not a big deal to me, but for Lian, it’s another big change. Someone else who didn’t stick around.” He shrugged. “I don’t want to put her through that just so I can get my rocks off.”

This time both of Jason’s eyebrows went up. “When did you get so mature?” he asked.

Roy nodded in Lian’s direction, his expression soft. “About three seconds after I saw her,” he said.

As if she knew they were talking about her, Lian climbed out of the sandbox and came running over to them. “Daddy Daddy Daddy! Can I have a juicebox?” she asked.

“What’s the magic word?” Roy asked.

“Can I have a juicebox, _please_ ,” Lian said, looking impatient. Her expression was so similar to one Jason had seen on Roy’s face a thousand times that he had to stifle a laugh.

“You can, but also, your shoelace is untied,” Roy said. “Let me tie that first so you don’t trip, okay?”

Lian stuck her foot out at Jason. “I want Uncle Jay to do it,” she declared. When Jason just blinked at her in surprise, she added, “Please?”

Jason looked helplessly at Roy, who shrugged. “Hey, she said please.”

“Uh, okay.” Jason hunkered down on one knee. Lian’s sneakers were pink and purple, with unicorns on the tongues. Her feet were impossibly small, and his fingers, which had defused bombs and dug bullets out of his own flesh, felt swollen and clumsy as he tied the tiny ends of her shoelace into a bow and then a firm double knot. “Uh, I like your unicorns.”

“What do you say, etai yazi?” Roy asked as Jason stood back up.

“Thank you!” Lian chirped, and accepted her juice box reward, which Roy had apparently pulled from somewhere and placed a straw in while Jason had been distracted by the smallest foot on the planet. “Daddy? Are we going to Grampa Ollie’s tonight?”

“You bet.” Roy looked at Jason. “Fridays are family dinner night. It’s a whole thing.”

“Got it,” Jason said, although he didn’t, really. He knew Ollie and Roy had been working on repairing the rift for a while, but he hadn’t realized it had gotten to the “weekly family dinners” stage. Dinner at Wayne Manor every Friday sounded like something he’d chew his own arm off to avoid.

“Is Uncle Jay coming?” Lian asked.

Roy looked at Jason again. “Sure, if he wants,” he said.

Jason held up his hands. “Oh, I don’t want to intrude…”

“Nah, we have guests all the time,” Roy said. “I think Hal’s only friends with Ollie at this point for the free food. Plus, this way you can meet the girls.”

He looked so excited about it, at the prospect of introducing Jason to his...sisters? Jason wasn’t totally sure of the relationship, actually, or even how many girls there were, and was even less clear on why Roy wanted to subject them to a discarded former Bat. But he couldn’t say no to that face any more than he could have refused to tie Lian’s shoe.

“...Yeah, okay,” he said, and Lian cheered and accidentally squirted him with her juice box.

*

“I have to admit, I’m a little surprised,” Jason said.

They were in Roy’s car, which was _extremely_ sensible. At least it was still red. It was good to know there were constants in life.

Lian was strapped into a car seat in the back, playing with some kind of toy that asked her to match letters in a robotic voice and then played a cheerful little tune when she got them right. The song was driving Jason up the wall a little bit, but it at least kept Lian distracted enough that he felt safe bringing up what might be a sensitive topic.

“By?” Roy asked. He was wearing a Star City Rockets t-shirt and tight, faded jeans. Lian was wearing a Princess Leia shirt, polka dot leggings, and mismatched socks. Jason felt extremely overdressed in his button-down shirt and nice slacks, but apparently some of Alfred’s training on etiquette had stuck, including what to wear when accepting a dinner invitation. Jason might be a conniving, murderous son of a bitch, but damn if he didn’t always know which fork to use.

“Our destination,” Jason said, plucking at the red-and-white string of the bakery box Roy had told him to hold. “I knew things were better between you and Ollie, but I didn’t know they were ‘weekly dinner’ better.”

“Blame that one on her, too,” Roy said, nodding towards the backseat. “She never gets to see her mother, I’m not going to take her grandfather away from her. Besides, there’s Dinah and Connor and the girls. I want to see them, and I want Lian to see them.” He made a right turn onto a residential street full of old, elegant houses and started up the implausibly steep hill. “Honestly, Ollie’s great with her. I don’t have any worries on that count. He might have let me down in the bad old days, but he’d walk across hot coals for her.” He glanced in the rearview mirror and smiled at his daughter. “She’s worth it.”

Jason bit back his first retort, which was that Roy was worth it too, had been even in the depths of his addiction. “And _you’re_ okay?” he asked. He knew Roy would sit through endless dinners that made him feel like shit if it made his daughter happy. Hell, he’d do it to make a stranger happy.

“Wow, feelings hour with Jason Todd,” Roy said, laughing a little.

Jason shrugged. He wasn’t about to talk about his own feelings any time soon, but other people’s were fair game, especially since he knew Roy had more of them than he liked to admit.

Roy pulled into a driveaway. “Yeah, I’m fine,” he said. “Like you said, we’re better. Sure, he screwed up in a million years ago, but…” He spread his hands on the steering wheel, palms up. “So did I. And then I lost him.” He smiled at Jason. “When people come back from the dead, you kind of want to hold them a little closer, you know?”

Jason snorted. “Maybe in _your_ family.”

Roy turned off the engine. “Well, you can get a big ol’ Arrow family group hug tonight if you want one,” he offered, and Jason shuddered. “Hey baby girl, put down the game, we’re here.”

Lian flung down her toy and threw her hands in the air. “Yay! Daddy, let me out!”

Jason let himself out of the car, still holding his bakery box, as Roy went to get Lian out of her car seat. He stepped back to take in the house: a towering wedding cake of a Victorian painted canary yellow with red trim, perched at the top of one of the steepest hills Jason had ever seen outside of actual mountains. Balconies and turrets sprouted from the house at random, as if multiple architects had tried to make it look like a castle but hadn’t been able to agree on how. The front garden was an explosion of flowers, with stepping stones leading through them to the front door instead of a solid path.

“Stately Wayne Manor it ain’t,” Roy said, following Jason’s gaze.

“That’s not necessarily a bad thing,” Jason replied. He knew the real estate prices in this city, and there was no way this place was cheap, but it also looked like a _home_. Wayne Manor had always been more of an extension of Bruce’s disguise than anything else.

Roy set Lian down and she headed for the front door, hopping from stone to stone as she went. The door was locked, but Roy had a key. He unlocked the door and they stepped into...chaos.

“Has anyone seen my bow?”

“Someone get the garlic bread, it’s about to burn!”

“It’s Mia’s turn to set the table!”

“No it’s not, it’s yours!”

“Who left their boots on the couch?”

“The garlic bread is burning!”

“I can’t find my math textbook!”

“Oliver, you said you’d restock the first aid kits!”

“I did! Didn’t I?”

“What is that smell?”

“It’s the fucking garlic bread! Turn it off!

Roy gave Jason a sheepish smile. “Believe it or not, this is pretty tame for them,” he said. “Come on.”

Jason fought down his first instinct, which was to grab a weapon and get his back against a wall, and followed Roy through the front hall and living room, both of which were cluttered in a homey kind of way—shoes and backpacks piled in the hall, half-assembled arrows on the coffee table, someone’s homework on the couch.

As they passed the stairs, a blonde teenage girl came sliding down the bannister and dismounted with a front flip that made up in enthusiasm what it lacked in elegance. “Hi Lian!”

“Hi Mia!”

“No gymnastics above the basement,” Roy said, with the cadence of a rule often repeated and ignored.

“Ugh, you’re such an old man,” the girl said, rolling her eyes. “Hey, who’s the hottie?”

Before Roy or Jason could respond, she disappeared around the corner, yelling, “Roy’s here!”

“Roy’s here? Where’s my granddaughter?” bellowed a voice that Jason was pretty sure he could identify, a guess that was confirmed when Lian took off running.

“Grampa Ollie! Grampa Ollie!” she shrieked.

Roy and Jason turned the corner onto an open-plan kitchen and dining room crammed with people, only some of whom Jason could identify. Ollie had scooped Lian up and was tossing her into the air while she squealed with delight. Black Canary—Dinah—was making a face at a tray of slightly blackened garlic bread, while Connor Hawke mixed a salad in a truly enormous wooden bowl. The girl from the stairs—Mia, apparently—was taking a pitcher of iced tea out of the fridge, while another blonde girl set the table. A third teenage girl, this one with black hair, was sitting at the table and waxing a bowstring.

“Ollie, you’re gonna make her crazy,” Roy said, leaning in to kiss Dinah on the cheek. “Hi, Dinah. You’ve met Jason, right?”

An awkward silence descended as Roy’s seemingly endless family members all seemed to register Jason’s presence simultaneously. Jason was grateful that Roy had told Ollie to set an extra place ahead of time, otherwise he suspected he might be catching an arrow or three in the torso.

“Todd,” Ollie said, holding Lian like he thought Jason might suddenly snatch her and run cackling into the night. “Been a while.”

“That’s _Jason Todd?_ ” one of the teenage girls whispered.

It was Connor who broke the awkwardness by putting the salad tongs down and walking around the butcher block to offer his hand. “Hi, Jason. Nice to see you again.”

Jason juggled the bakery box clumsily and shook the proffered hand. “Thanks, you too.” He’d only encountered Connor once before, during one of the big superhero dust-ups where there was barely time to breathe, let alone make small talk, but suddenly Connor was his new favorite person.

The atmosphere in the room relaxed palpably. Dinah even smiled at him as he handed her the bakery box. “Did you bring dessert? You didn’t have to do that.”

“Oh, no, uh, Roy brought it, I just carried it,” Jason said, and prayed none of the criminals back home in Gotham ever found out about the dreaded Red Hood stammering like an idiot over a pie or whatever the hell was in that box.

“Okay, you know Ollie and Dinah and Connor,” Roy said, putting a hand between Jason’s shoulder blades to steer him. It was oddly steadying. “You met my sister Mia in the hall, unfortunately, and this is my other sister, Cissie.” Mia stuck her tongue out at Roy and the other blonde girl waved. “The one who is about to unstring her bow and put it away because it’s dinner time is my aunt Emiko.”

“I know a hundred ways to kill you, Harper,” Emiko said, but she did in fact unstring her bow and walk away, presumably to put it wherever it belonged.

Jason blinked. His own family was unconventional enough that Roy’s assortment of siblings didn’t phase him, but... “Aunt?” She couldn’t be older than sixteen.

“She’s Ollie’s half sister,” Roy explained. “Same dad.”

“Okay, family tree time later, I’m starving,” Ollie said, putting Lian down.

“I keep saying, we should just print it on business cards and hand it out,” Mia said.

Jason found himself way down towards the foot of the table, which he was fine with, since it put him next to Roy and as far away as possible from Ollie. It did, however, mean he was across from all three girls, who stared at him with an intensity only teenage girls could muster. He found himself longing for Cass and Steph’s utter disdain for him instead of this blatant curiosity.

Thankfully, meals at the Queen household were apparently a far cry from the crushing silences that reigned in the Wayne Manor dining room. Everyone talked pretty much at once, interrupting each other carelessly and passing dishes back and forth instead of waiting for Alfred to serve them. Jason dished some salad onto his plate and handed the bowl to Cissie, while Roy snagged some of the least-charred pieces of garlic bread for Jason and Lian’s plates.

There were two huge lasagnas in place of pride on the table. “This one’s got ground beef in it and that one’s vegetarian for Connor’s delicate sensibilities,” Emiko said, pointing. “I’m assuming you don’t mind eating meat, though, considering how many people you’ve killed?”

“Emi!” Roy snapped.

“What? I’ve killed people too, he’s not special,” she said, rolling her eyes.

“Yes, you’re very scary,” Ollie said from the head of the table. Jason hadn’t realized he’d been listening. “Now stop bullying our guest. Batman will be impossible at the next Justice League meeting if you make his kid cry.”

“Really?” Jason asked. “I would have assumed he’s impossible at every meeting.”

Dinah cracked up, and even Ollie gave him a wry smile at that. “Your lips to God’s ears, kid,” he said.

Jason helped himself to a square of the vegetarian lasagna, since it was closer, and then put another square on Roy’s plate, since Roy was busy cutting Lian’s food up for her. Roy smiled his thanks, and Jason shifted in his seat and focused on eating and flying under the radar.

His attempts to turn invisible apparently failed, because all three girls were still staring at him when he looked up from his plate. He swallowed. “It’s good?” he offered.

“You’re just lucky it’s not chili night,” Cissie replied.

Roy laughed. “Please, I wouldn’t invite him to chili night. I _like_ him.”

“Hey, my chili is a work of art,” Ollie insisted.

“More like a work of fart,” said at least three people at the same time, including Dinah.

Dinner went on in that vein. Mia and Cissie squabbled over the last piece of garlic bread before Connor reminded them that there was another tray on the stove. Ollie told an extremely long and implausible story about a giant starfish from outer space that Jason wouldn’t have believed if he hadn’t already read about it in Bruce’s files. Lian picked the mushrooms out of her lasagna and dropped them on the floor until Roy stopped her.

When no one could eat another bite, Ollie got up and got a pot of coffee brewing while Dinah wrapped up the rest of the lasagna and complained about the fridge being too full to fit the leftovers in anywhere. Emiko and Cissie started on the dishes, and Mia and Connor took Lian into the backyard to play tag.

“Wanna go sit outside?” Roy asked. “It’s still pretty warm.”

Jason belatedly wondered if he should have offered to help clean up, but everyone already seemed to have a task. Alfred had always just taken care of everything at Wayne Manor, like magic, and when Jason was on the road he lived on takeout and frozen food and the occasional MRE, none of which required washing up after.

“Sure,” he said, and joined Roy on the porch steps, where they sat and watched Lian tear around the yard. It _was_ warm, enough that Roy didn’t seem to mind only being in short sleeves. But then, Roy wasn’t a big fan of sleeves in general. Jason supposed if he had arms like Roy’s, he wouldn’t want to cover them up either.

“So explain the aunt thing,” he said.

Roy sighed. “Yeah, so apparently Ollie’s dad was a real horndog with a thing for assassins, which, I mean, I guess I can’t throw stones. You’ve heard of Shado?” Jason’s eyes widened. “Okay, yeah, you have. Anyway, they had an affair right before old man Queen died and Emi was the result, so as far as I’m concerned it was worth it.” He nodded towards his siblings playing with Lian. “Connor is Ollie’s bio-kid and so is Cissie. Different moms, though. Mia’s adopted, like me. Well, she’s really adopted, there’s paperwork and stuff, but I’m an adult, so.”

He shrugged, but there was enough wistfulness in his tone that Jason wanted to drag Ollie down to City Hall by his stupid beard and force him to sign those damn papers at gunpoint. Even though he knew the papers didn’t fix anything; he and Bruce were proof of that.

“I’ve never seen you so...big brother-y,” he said instead. He usually forgot that Roy was a few years older than him, but the Roy he was seeing tonight...well, kind of reminded him of Dick. Well, Dick without the stick up his ass.

“What, even when Dick brought you by the Tower when you were Robin?” Roy teased, nudging him. The stairs were narrow and neither of them were small men, so the nudge was really more like leaning into Jason and back, since they were already crammed in together, but Jason didn’t mind. They’d been in tighter places.

“Nah, you weren’t a brother type then,” he said, leaning against Roy in turn and not bothering to pull back. How long had it been since he’d just _sat_ somewhere, without having to watch his back or be ready to run? And Roy would hold his weight; he always had. “You were my annoying older brother’s cool friend.”

“Oh, _really_.” Roy braced his arm on the porch behind him and Jason settled more comfortably into the curve he made. Roy smelled good, familiar. “I was the cool one? Not Dick?”

Jason snorted. “Please. Dick was always telling me what to do. You didn’t care what I did, plus you were in a _band_.”

“For like a hot minute.”

“It was still a band. I was wearing short pants and hanging out with the butler. You were like a literal rock star to me.”

“I love this,” Roy said, laughing a little. “This is my favorite conversation we’ve ever had. Tell me more nice things about myself.”

There was an endless list, but the words caught in Jason’s throat. Somehow he couldn’t help feeling like he’d be saying more about himself than Roy if he tried. “You look way less punchable without the trucker hat,” he said, which had the benefit of sounding like a joke while still being completely true. There was nothing remotely punchable about the line of Roy’s profile; his heavy brows; the way the light from the house picked out the copper in his stubble and eyelashes.

Roy smiled at him, and that wasn’t punchable either. “I’ll take it,” he said.

Someone cleared their throat behind them.

Jason jumped a little and turned, leaning away from Roy as if he’d been caught doing...what? Ollie stood there, a dish towel over one shoulder. Something about his expression made Jason wonder how long he’d been standing there.

“Coffee’s ready if you guys want some,” he said. “It’s decaf. Also, if you want any of those cookies you brought I’d hustle before they’re gone.”

Roy got to his feet with a groan and offered a hand to help Jason up. “That’s what I get for bringing dessert from Papp’s,” he said. “Next time y’all get Chips Ahoy and I keep the good stuff for myself.”

Dessert and coffee—well, herbal tea for Connor and milk for Lian—was even less formal than dinner had been, with everyone scattered throughout the ground floor instead of seated around the table. Lian returned from the living room with a milk mustache, the girls in tow, and climbed into Roy’s lap.

“Daddy, can I sleep here tonight?” she asked.

“You want to have a sleepover with the big girls, huh?” Roy asked. He glanced up at Ollie, who shrugged. “I don’t know, bug, they might have homework…”

“Please, it’s Friday,” Mia said.

Cissie sat down next to Roy and opened her arms, and Lian immediately clambered over to her lap instead. “Yeah, we don’t mind watching her. We can have a _Moana_ dance party, right, Lian?”

“ _You_ can have a _Moana_ dance party,” Emiko snorted.

“She says that now, but you should see this girl get down to ‘Shiny,’” Mia stage whispered.

“Okay, no fair, that one is a bop.”

It was Roy’s turn to shrug. “If it’s all right with all of you, it’s fine with me. I’ll come by around lunchtime tomorrow to get her?”

“With bagels from Weisinger’s?” Cissie suggested.

Roy’s mouth fell open in mock outrage. “Oh, I see, this was a clever ploy. Ollie, I’m sorry but you’re raising three supervillains who _will_ use an innocent child to manipulate you.”

“Oh, I’m well aware,” Ollie said dryly, and sipped his coffee.

*

Roy and Jason were out the door not long after, although not before Jason very awkwardly thanked Ollie and Dinah for having him over and Roy showered Lian with about five hundred kisses. The car seemed quiet and small without any noises coming from the backseat.

“Won’t they need...stuff?” Jason asked. “Like...diapers and things?”

Roy gave him a look. “She’s four. How shitty of a father do you think I am?”

“Is that not a diaper age?”

“Ideally, no.” Roy signaled and changed lanes. “Anyway, they’re good. She’s got her own room there with clothes and toys and things. Actually, so do I. Have a room, I mean, not toys.”

Jason raised an eyebrow. “You have some toys in it, don’t you?”

Roy grinned. “Well. Maybe one or two. Anyway it’s useful if we’re there late, or if I crash there after patrol while one of the girls is babysitting, or...whatever. It’s nice to have a home away from home.”

“Oh, well, I mean, you could have stayed,” Jason said. “If it made things easier. I could have gotten an Uber or something.”

“Nah, dude, don’t be ridiculous. It’s still early—this way we can hang out a bit. You can have my undivided attention.”

Roy’s undivided attention was a heady thing, Jason knew. He’d seen the way Roy focused when he was working on a new weapon; the laserlike precision of Roy’s aim when his world dwindled to him and his target. The back of Jason’s neck prickled with heat.

The conversation faltered after that, which was odd. Roy was usually so good at filling the silences, and having seen his whole family in action, Jason no longer wondered why. The quiet between them didn’t feel bad or uncomfortable, though—just weighty, like something Jason could reach out and stroke.

He watched Roy as he drove, the way the streetlights caught his features differently as they passed them. Here, the light carving out the plane of a high cheekbone; there, the shadows deepening below his lower lip. His eyes a pale indefinable color in the darkness; the freckles on his temples and forearms standing out in sharp relief and then fading away again. He thought Roy knew Jason was watching him, but he didn’t turn away. Somehow it felt okay, right now, to look his fill.

Roy parked the car and they walked up the stairs to his apartment in silence. Jason was breathing hard by the time they reached the fourth floor, and he didn’t think it was just the climb.

He waited while Roy unlocked the locks—one, two, three—and opened the door. He followed Roy inside. Waited again while Roy closed them—one, two three. Roy tossed his keys onto the hall table and Jason heard him exhale.

Maybe he moved first. Maybe Roy did. All Jason knew was that one minute they were standing in that dark hallway and the next they were kissing, hot and eager, Jason’s hands fisted in the back of Roy’s t-shirt and Roy’s hands buried in Jason’s hair.

The weight that had settled on them, the heaviness Jason had been feeling all night, ignited and took Jason with it. He bit at Roy’s bottom lip, pulled him closer until their hips were flush. Roy groaned against his mouth. “Jaybird…”

“Fuck,” Jason said, and captured Roy’s lips again. That nickname used to annoy him; when had it gotten inside of his bones like that? Why did it sound so different when Roy’s voice was rough with desire?

Roy pushed at the shoulders of Jason’s jacket and Jason reluctantly let go of Roy long enough to let the jacket slide off his arms and fall to the floor. “Bedroom?” he asked. Somehow it was okay to ask, it was _right_ , even though they’d never been like this before. Jason would have marveled at how easy it was, if he could have thought about anything but how much he needed to get his hands on Roy’s bare skin.

“Right around the corner,” Roy said, shuffling backwards. It took them a while to get there, though; Jason couldn’t seem to let Roy go long enough to walk properly, and when he finally managed to pry himself off, Roy took the opportunity to shove him up against the wall and mouth at his throat until Jason was trembling.

By the time they tumbled onto the bed they’d lost their shoes, Jason’s shirt, and Roy’s belt. Roy straddled Jason’s waist and skated those big, callused hands over Jason’s stomach. “You’re so fucking gorgeous, Jaybird.”

Jason had absolutely no idea how to respond to either the words or the earnestness in Roy’s blue eyes, so he reached up and tugged at Roy’s stupid Star City Rockets t-shirt instead. “Get rid of this,” he said. “You know I’m a Gotham Goliaths fan.”

Roy laughed. “Forgive me for offending the delicate sensibilities of your shitty-ass baseball team,” he said, and pulled the shirt off, tossing it to the floor. His torso was paler than his arms and face, no freckles or ruddy tan, and crisscrossed with pale pink scars. Some girls Jason had been with had liked his scars, but he’d never really seen the appeal—they were just a part of his body, a reminder of his history. Now he found himself wanting to trace all of Roy’s with his fingers, with his tongue; wanting to sink his teeth into the meat of Roy’s unbelievable shoulders and hear him beg.

“I like that face,” Roy said, bending to kiss him. “What about the pants? Are they offensive to you too?”

“Hate ’em,” Jason said, hands sliding up Roy’s arms where they were braced on the bed. “They gotta go.”

“Oh well, if they gotta they gotta,” Roy said, kissing him again before sitting back up and unzipping his fly. He had to climb off of Jason to get his jeans off, and Jason took the opportunity to strip out of the rest of his own clothes and kick them off the bed.

Roy pinned him again as soon as he was done. Jason had thought being under Roy when he had just his shirt off was nice, but it turned out that being under a completely naked and conspicuously hard Roy was significantly better.

“Hi, beautiful,” Roy said, smiling down at him. It was another one of those things for which there was no answer, and so Jason drew him in for another kiss and let his hands roam: down the sculpted muscles of Roy’s back; up his lean thighs; over the curve of his ass, which made his hips rock forward against Jason’s.

“Fuck,” Roy said, laughing into the hollow of Jason’s neck as his dick pressed against Jason’s belly. “You and your fresh hands.”

Jason squeezed, a little rough, loving the way Roy’s breathing hitched. “You want me to stop?”

“Not exactly.” Roy nipped at the corner of Jason’s jaw, then pushed up. “But it’s gonna be kind of hard for you to reach while I’m sucking you off.”

Jason’s mouth went dry and he released his grip. “Right. Uh...go for it.”

He should have known that Roy Harper would be a _fucking tease_. Roy took his sweet time sliding down Jason’s body, kissing and licking while Jason felt himself growing progressively more wild. He coaxed Jason’s nipples to hardness with mouth and fingers, left bite marks on Jason’s ribs, and spent so long sucking bruises into Jason’s hips and inner thighs that Jason genuinely feared his soul was about to leave his body.

“You’re killing me here, Harper,” he managed, knowing his thighs were trembling and too worked up to be furious about it.

“Come on, Jaybird,” Roy said, grinning wickedly up at him. “You don’t bring a starving man to a feast and tell him to make it quick.”

Jason was extremely close to kicking him in the face out of principle—only _moderately_ hard, but still—and maybe Roy could tell, or maybe he just figured he’d tortured Jason enough, because finally, _finally_ his hand was on Jason’s dick, steadying it, and his tongue dragged along the shaft, and all thoughts of kicking him went flying out of Jason’s head.

“Roy,” he said, breathier than he’d meant to. Roy pressed a few gentle kisses to the head of his dick, which made Jason’s heart stutter unexpectedly, before taking Jason in his mouth.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Jason groaned, his hands dropping to Roy’s head as his mouth worked around him, hot and wet. “Ah, shit, Roy.” There was nothing for him to hold on to with Roy’s hair cut short like this, and he might be an asshole but he wasn’t about to push Roy down on his dick unless Roy asked.

Dear God, he hoped Roy asked.

Roy pulled off as Jason’s fingers flexed uselessly against his scalp. “You okay there, Jaybird?”

“I used to think about pulling your hair while you did this,” Jason’s mouth said, totally without permission from his brain. “Before.” Roy looked good with the short hair, he looked _great_ , but those strands of copper twisted around his fingers were a fantasy Jason had never even let himself admit he had.

“Fuck, I’d grow it back out just for that,” Roy said with a groan, and took Jason back in his mouth. Jason curved his hands against the prickly fuzz of Roy’s hair and thought about him growing it back just so Jason could pull it—and then had to think about something else immediately or this wasn’t going to last nearly as long as he wanted it too.

But there wasn’t anything to think about that wasn’t just as devastating—the sight of Roy’s perfect mouth stretched around him; the way his tongue moved against the underside of Jason’s dick like he knew just how to take Jason apart; the way his strong hands held Jason’s hips down against the mattress. The way he kept looking up at Jason, blue eyes hazy under those pale red lashes, and the _noises_ he made, like he was enjoying this almost as much as Jason was.

Those hands slid under Jason, cupping his ass and pushing up, and at the same time Roy’s mouth suddenly went still. Jason stared at Roy, not sure why he’d stopped—and then he got it and _fuck_ , no, he wasn’t going to last.

“Fucking _hell_ , Roy,” he said, and rocked his hips up experimentally. Roy moaned, eyes fluttering closed. “Oh, _fuck_.”

Permission granted, he let himself fuck Roy’s mouth, let himself hold Roy in place and _enjoy_ him—shallow thrusts, because he didn’t want to hurt Roy, would die before he hurt him, but Roy had told him to and Roy was letting him and _god_ , if Jason was any judge those moans meant that Roy was _loving_ this.

“Shit, _shit_ ,” Jason groaned, fucking into that plush, wet mouth. Roy was pliant and trusting and _eager_ , like he had something special in his bed instead of something damaged and dangerous, and the pull of that lie was so intoxicating that Jason was practically dizzy with it.

All too soon, he felt himself tipping over the edge. “Gonna come,” he warned, and Roy pulled back until just the head of Jason’s dick was in his mouth, pumping Jason’s length with his hand, hard and fast until Jason’s head snapped back and his toes curled and he came on Roy’s tongue.

Roy sucked him until he was oversensitive and letting out little whines he would deny later. He lay panting on the mattress as Roy sat back on his heels. Roy looked triumphant and _debauched_ , his mouth wet and swollen, his own dick flushed and hard, and Jason needed to touch him right now.

“Get up here,” he said, and Roy sprawled half on top of him, clingy as ever, but Jason had never _really_ minded it and now he couldn’t even be bothered to pretend. He kissed Roy, licking the taste of himself out of that irresistible mouth, and shifted so he could get a hand around Roy’s dick.

“Fuck, Jaybird, yeah,” Roy said, dropping his forehead to Jason’s shoulder, and Jason reached up with his free hand and tilted Roy’s head back up because he wanted to _look_. He wanted to see Roy’s long, lean body against his, and Roy’s gorgeous dick in his hand, and he wanted to see pleasure washing over Roy’s beautiful face and know it was because of him.

Roy, it turned out, was a talker. Big surprise.

“Yeah, Jay baby, just like that, _fuck_ ,” Roy groaned, hips canting into Jason’s touch. He was leaking like crazy, slick and hard in Jason’s hand, and if Jason hadn’t just come he thought he could have gotten hard again from the hitch in Roy’s breath every time he bottomed out into Jason’s fist. “Oh fuck, don’t stop, please, _please_.”

Jason kissed him, and if there was a hint of teeth in it Roy didn’t seem to mind. Normally an orgasm left Jason feeling boneless and lethargic; he made sure his partner got off if they hadn’t already because it was the decent thing to do, but it didn’t excite him. But he still felt nearly as wild as he had before he’d come. Wanting, fiercely, to see Roy get off; wanting to take him there.

“You like that?” he asked, twisting his wrist on the downstroke, and then he was glad Lian was sleeping elsewhere tonight, because Roy was _loud_.

“Fuck, baby, it’s so good, you’re so good to me, love the way you touch me,” Roy babbled, and each breathless, needy word lodged itself somewhere under Jason’s ribs. “Want you so fucking bad, Jaybird, Jason, _fuck_ I’m so close.”

Jason pumped him faster. “You gonna come for me, Roy?”

“ _Fuck_ , yes, yes, I’m— _ah!_ ” Roy’s face crumpled, so fucking beautiful it was ridiculous, and he came all over Jason’s hand with a sob.

Jason stroked him through it, reveling in the way Roy’s dick twitched in his hand, the way he shivered through the aftershocks, every bitten-off little sound. When Roy went limp against the mattress Jason sat up and reached for the tissues, cleaning up the come on his hand and the little bit splattered across Roy’s stomach.

Then he just sat there, unsure of what to do, until Roy opened his eyes and gave him a goofy, sleepy smile. “Hey,” he said, tugging on Jason’s arm. “Come here.”

Jason let Roy pull him down, pull him close and kiss him. He still tasted like Jason’s come. “You tired?” Roy asked.

“Yeah,” Jason admitted, because, well, it was true. _There_ was the post-orgasmic lethargy he’d been expecting, along with a little creeping thread of anxiety that he decided to ignore.

Roy shifted against him, getting comfortable. “We can sleep in,” he assured Jason. “Get bagels for brunch. Wait’ll you try them, they’re fucking unreal.” His arm draped over Jason’s stomach; his cheek tucked into the curve of Jason’s shoulder.

 _Cuddling._ The fact that Roy was a cuddler was even less surprising than the fact that he was a talker.

“Oh,” said Jason. “I might have to...uh, get up early.”

“Okay,” Roy said, and yawned. His eyes were already closed. “Set an alarm…”

His muscles went loose. A minute later Jason heard his breathing even out.

Jason gazed up at the ceiling and tried not to think about anything at all.

*

Jason didn’t set an alarm, but he still woke up early the next morning. At some point he’d shifted onto his side, and Roy was spooned up behind him, one arm wrapped loosely around him, warm and heavy.

Jason stared at the nightstand directly in his line of sight. There was a pink stuffed teddy bear with a heart on its stomach, flopped over onto its side, its plastic eyes so shiny and black Jason could see himself reflected in them.

What the hell was he doing here?

Him and Roy...they’d teamed up when Roy had been at his lowest. When he’d been alone. Without the Titans, without Ollie, without anyone for his big generous heart to hold onto. And maybe Jason’s company had been good for Roy then, or at least better than nothing. Jason liked to think so, anyway.

But now? Roy was a _father_. He had a beautiful daughter who adored him, and Jason didn’t have any real metric for measuring good parenting, but he thought it looked something like Roy and Lian. He had a big, noisy, insane family who loved him—even fucking _Ollie_ , who at one point Jason had thought Roy might never speak to again. He had a _life_ : a stable, full, relatively _normal_ life, and it was painfully clear that he was happy with it.

What the fuck was Jason going to do but bring him down?

Jason had made his peace with it a long time ago. Everything he touched turned to shit. That was simply the way the world worked. He’d made the choice, eventually, to use it—to turn his destructive tendencies on the people who deserved them instead of the few people who made the mistake of letting him get close.

When Roy was at rock bottom, at least Jason couldn’t pull him any lower. But Jason wasn’t going to fuck things up for his friend now, or that perfect little girl.

He eased out from under Roy’s arm, closing his eyes against the little hurt noise Roy made when he slipped free, and went searching for his clothes. He tried to dress as silently as possible, but Roy had been trained to stay alert to disturbances almost as intensely as Jason had, and Jason was still buttoning up last night’s shirt when Roy opened his eyes.

“Jay…?” he murmured, and then frowned and sat up. “Jaybird? Where are you going?”

God, he was gorgeous even still half-asleep, the sheets puddled in his lap and his blue eyes cloudy. Jason bit back on the thought. He’d never really let himself look at Roy that way before, and now he was going to have to train himself back out of it.

“Oh, I gotta...I should get back to Gotham,” Jason said. “There’s...stuff. That I gotta take care of. You know.”

It was a shitty lie, a fact that was evident to Jason as soon as it slipped out. What Roy _knew_ was that Jason hated Gotham slightly more than he loved it, and never rushed back if he could help it.

“You’re leaving?” Roy asked. Just two words, very quietly, but Roy was an expert marksman. He only needed one arrow to land a fatal shot.

“Yeah, I gotta, and you’ve got your own...stuff, and I should get out of your hair,” Jason said. It felt more pathetic with every word he said.

He was aware, of course, that he was being a douche, and even if he was ultimately doing it for Roy’s own good, he expected Roy to call him on it. Roy had never let him off easy before, never let him walk away when Roy didn’t think they were done. Part of him wanted Roy to get angry, to start yelling at him the way he so richly deserved, because walking out on a fight was easy for Jason, always had been.

But Roy just got out of bed and found his own boxers. “I’ll let you out,” he said.

He walked Jason to the door and waited while Jason put his shoes back on. “Have a safe flight,” he said when Jason straightened up. “Say hi to Dick for me.”

No anger. Just...resignation. As if he’d never expected anything better from Jason in the first place.

It shouldn’t hurt. It wasn’t anything Jason hadn’t brought on himself.

Roy unlocked the door and held it open. It felt weird not to hug him. Jason wanted to hug him. He _wanted_ to say forget it, Gotham could wait another day or week or lifetime, and haul Roy back into bed to kiss that disappointed look off his face.

But instead he said, “See you around,” and walked out the door.

He heard all three locks click shut before he even reached the stairs.

*

He couldn’t get a flight back to Gotham until early evening, which at least gave him time to pack. Of course, he’d long since gotten into the habit of keeping his belongings easy to grab and run with in under a minute, so packing didn’t exactly kill a lot of time. By the time he’d set his fully packed bag by the door and used the automated system on the TV to check out, he still had over an hour before he had to vacate the room.

He didn’t feel like sightseeing and he _definitely_ didn’t feel like sitting around an airport, so he sat on the bed and flipped aimlessly through the channels. Dumb cartoon. Dumb reality show. Dumb soap opera. Finally he left it on the news, for lack of anything better, and settled in for a good round of hating himself.

Why had he kissed Roy? Why had he let Roy kiss _him?_ The plan had been to stop by Star City, look up his friend, maybe have a night on the town. Sure, the presence of a four-year-old might have precluded the latter, but the afternoon in the park had been fine. It had been nice. He didn’t have to have dinner with Roy’s family, too, like a college boyfriend being brought home for Thanksgiving. He didn’t have to go home with Roy.

Jason had never really had trouble combining—or separating—sex and friendship. He and Kori had slept together, and then they’d stopped sleeping together, and they were still friends. Essence, Rose...they’d been lovers, and then they hadn’t been, and he’d been able to work with them afterwards just fine. Well, okay, they’d both tried to kill him. But after _that_.

Roy, though… Roy liked to play the shameless horndog act, like he thought it was expected of him or something—maybe because he’d been raised by Oliver “Never Met an Entendre He Couldn’t Double” Queen. But Jason had seen Roy after Jade. He’d seen him with Kori. Roy got all _romantic_ about sex. Even if he hadn’t yelled at Jason for walk-of-shame-ing out of his apartment at the crack of dawn, even if he tried to be cool about it, this was going to fuck up their partnership.

Except—oh, right. They didn’t _have_ a partnership, not anymore. Jason had left the country for two years, and Roy had moved on.

Maybe that was why he hadn’t gone back to Gotham on schedule, why he hadn’t turned down the dinner invitation, why he hadn’t asked Roy to drop him at his hotel last night. He’d gotten used to having Roy all to himself, once upon a time, and he’d wanted that feeling back, one last time before he made his peace with that part of his life being over.

Or, shit, maybe he’d just wanted to get into Roy’s pants. He didn’t even know anymore.

The local news flickered across the screen and Jason watched it without really processing it: some corruption involving the mayor; a feel-good story about the Star City Zoo; a multiple car pileup and traffic jam downtown. There was a sensible red car at the center of the pileup, its hood crumpled like an accordian.

Jason froze.

It was a common make and model of car—that was the whole _point_ , everyone had them, they were safe and reliable and _average_. There were probably hundreds of them in Star City. But even though Jason didn’t know Star that well, he was pretty sure that intersection was between Roy’s house and Ollie’s—and Roy had been planning on driving over there today.

He fumbled for his phone and called Roy. If Roy was fine, this was going to be incredibly awkward. If he _wasn’t_ fine…Jason shut down the thought.

The phone rang, and rang, and rang. “Come on, Roy, pick up…” Jason muttered as the news story switched to some bullshit nobody cared about because his best friend might have just been in a car accident and _why wasn’t he picking up his phone?_

 _Click._ “If you’re aiming for Roy Harper’s voicemail, you’ve hit the bullseye!”

“Fuck!” Jason ended the call and ran for the door, grabbing his helmet out of his bag on the way. He always took a room on a low floor for easy exits, so he skipped the poky elevators and raced down the stairs, calling up Barbara as he went.

“Uh, you know we’re not friends, right?” she said when she picked up.

“I need the address of the nearest hospital to the intersection of Haney and Cardy in Star City,” Jason said. “Also, you’re tight with Black Canary, right? Can you patch me through to her?”

Barbara must have picked up on the urgency in his voice, because her tone changed. “Uh...Adams Memorial Hospital, 1970 Main Street,” she said. “Let me ping Dinah. What’s going on?”

“Maybe nothing.” Jason bypassed the ground floor level and took the stairs to the parking garage. He didn’t have a ride of his own and would lose his mind in the back of a taxi. Time to borrow something fast and apologize later. “Can you see if Adams Memorial has admitted anyone named Harper in the last hour?”

“Oh no, Jason—” Barbara started to say, her voice soft with sympathy, and that was the _last_ thing Jason could deal with right now.

“Just check!” he snapped, and then: “Please.”

There was one good thing in this shitstorm of a day, it turned out: in the middle of a sea of electric cars and minivans, Jason spotted a motorcycle. He got to hotwiring while Barbara typed on the other end of the line.

“Nothing, but he might not have been processed yet,” she said. “And I’ve called Dinah three times and she hasn’t answered.”

“Got it.” The motorcycle’s engine came to life with a roar. “Thanks.”

“Jason—”

“Gotta go.” Jason cut the line and peeled out of the parking garage. He tried Roy’s phone again. No answer.

The most likely explanation for Roy not turning up in the hospital’s admission records was that he was fine, that it hadn’t been his car that Jason had seen for only a few seconds, and that Jason was paranoid from a lifetime of experiencing the worst possible outcome to every situation he found himself in. Dinah probably wasn’t answering her phone because she was enjoying a delicious bagel with her extended family, and Jason was probably a lunatic.

The other explanation was that they didn’t admit car crash victims who were DOA.

Jason swore under his breath and drove faster.

He left the motorcycle on the sidewalk in front of the hospital, because what the hell did he care? It wasn’t his, anyway. Yanking off his helmet, he ran to the front desk.

“Harper!” he barked. “I’m looking for a patient named Roy Harper! Is he here?”

The receptionist looked alarmed, which was probably fair. “Sir, I’m going to need you to calm down and take a step back.”

“Just tell me if he’s a patient here!”

“ _Sir_.”

Jason took a step back from the desk, holding up the hand that wasn’t gripping his helmet to show he wasn’t going to make trouble. Red Hood’s usual methods wouldn’t get him answers any faster in this situation. “Please, can you just check for me? Harper. H-A-R-P-E-R.”

She sighed and typed something into her computer. “I’m seeing...two Harpers. Which one was yours?”

Jason’s stomach dropped to the floor. Had Lian been in the car, too? No, no, it wasn’t _fair_ , Jason had gotten away from them as fast as he could, they didn’t deserve to have his luck follow them like this. “Both, I think. Roy and Lian?”

The receptionist nodded. “They’re in recovery, Room 211. Second floor, east wing.”

Jason took off, holding on to that word as tight as he could. _Recovery._ Recovery wasn’t _emergency_ , wasn’t _critical care_ , wasn’t _they’re gone and you fucked everything up and you’re never going to get a chance to fix it—_

He pounded up the stairs, followed the signs to the east wing, turned a corner—

—and heard laughter spilling out of Room 211, and was it possible that the world was capable of giving him something good for once?

He walked through the open door—and there was Roy, sitting on the hospital bed with his legs dangling off the side, fully dressed and looking completely fine except for an ace bandage around his left wrist. Lian was sitting in his lap with a couple of Band-Aids on her arms and a lollipop in her mouth, and the rest of the family was crammed into the room, all talking at once and laughing over whatever had just been said.

Lian was the first one to spot Jason, standing in the doorway trying to get his heart to beat normally again. “Uncle Jay!” she said, a little garbled around the lollipop.

Everyone turned to look at him, but out of eight pairs of eyes, only one left Jason feeling pinned in place and exposed. “Uh...hi.”

“Jason?” Roy said. Not Jaybird. “What are you doing here?”

“I, um, I saw the accident on the news,” Jason said. “Thought I recognized your car. Asked Barbara to find the most likely hospital.” It sounded crazy when he said it out loud, even though he’d been right. “Are you okay?”

“Mostly.” Roy didn’t look happy to see Jason, but he didn’t look angry, either. Jason didn’t know _what_ to make of his expression, which was disconcerting in and of itself. Roy was usually so transparent. “Some jackass ran a red light. My car’s totaled, but I just got a sprained wrist and some whiplash. I’m lucky.”

“And Lian? They said downstairs she was admitted.”

Lian took her lollipop out of her mouth. “We were in a crash!” she told Jason. “But I was very brave.”

Roy kissed the top of her head, and _that_ expression, the terror that hadn’t completely faded yet, was totally clear. “You sure were, baby girl.” He looked back up at Jason. “The backseat wasn’t touched, but they wanted to admit her just to check. The Band-Aids are, uh, a bit of a placebo.”

“Oh.” Jason wanted to sag against the doorframe with relief. He wanted to sit on the floor and cry. He wanted to kiss Roy until this whole stupid day went away.

But he wasn’t allowed to do any of that, and besides, everyone was watching. The girls, wildly entertained; Dinah and Connor, clearly sympathetic; Ollie looking almost angry. Jason couldn’t tell which was worse.

“I’m glad you’re okay,” he said, carefully. “I was concerned.”

“Uh, yeah, obviously,” Mia said, pretend-quietly.

“Mia,” Connor murmured, actually quietly.

Roy ignored them. “Don’t you have a plane to catch?” he asked Jason.

His tone wasn’t cruel. It was completely neutral, as if Roy was inquiring after the health of someone he barely knew. It hurt so much more than cruel would have.

Not for hours, but Jason suddenly couldn’t stay in this room another second. “Yeah,” he said. “I, um...bye, everyone.”

A few of Roy’s relatives winced, but Lian smiled and gave him a cheery wave. “Bye, Uncle Jay!”

This was why Bruce always waited until people turned their backs to leave a room. With nothing else to say and all those eyes on him, Jason turned and walked away.

He’d almost reached the stairs when he heard footsteps behind him. “Wait up, Todd. I want to talk to you.”

Ollie. Oh, fuck, Jason did _not_ need whatever this was going to be. He stopped, but didn’t bother to make his expression polite when he turned around. “What.”

“Yeah, nice try, Red Hood,” Ollie said. “I’m not impressed by Bruce—you think one of his kids is gonna scare me?”

Jason folded his arms, helmet dangling from his fingers, and waited.

“You’re really just gonna take off like that, huh?” Ollie asked.

Jason blinked. He’d been expecting some kind of demand to stay the hell away from Ollie’s house and all the teenage girls in it, not...this. “Excuse me?”

“He could have been killed today,” Ollie said. “Not even the way we all know we could go. Just a dumb, senseless accident. And you’re running to the airport?”

Jason had always found that increased hostility was a good response to nauseated guilt, and he took refuge in it now. “And when exactly did my travel plans become your business?”

“When you started fucking my son,” Ollie said. He didn’t say it in an accusatory or scandalized way, just completely matter-of-fact. Jason still felt the blood drain from his face. “Yeah, I know every generation thinks it invented sex, but neither of you is actually as subtle as you think you are.”

“Still not sure what part of this is your business,” Jason said, scrambling to regain a bit of ground. “Roy’s not a child. And from everything I hear you weren’t much good to him when he _was_ a kid, so forgive me if I’m not impressed by the belated protective father act.”

“Oh, believe me, I’m fully aware of the ways in which I failed him,” Ollie said. “Why do you think I know what it looks like?”

“Hey, fuck you,” Jason snapped. “I don’t have to stand there and be lectured by the man who kicked Roy into the _street_ when he needed _help—_ ”

“And I don’t have to stand here and listen to a holier-than-thou act from some punk with a kill count in the triple digits, but here we are,” Ollie said. “I could give a good goddamn what you think about me. But when my kid spends all night looking at some asshole like he hung the moon, then comes over two hours earlier than he was supposed to the next morning with a face like someone just shot his dog, even a shitty excuse for a parent like me is going to notice.”

Jason opened his mouth to respond, but his brain snagged on the words “two hours earlier.” He hadn’t even thought about the time. Roy was supposed to go to Ollie’s at noon, and it was barely noon now. He’d only been up so early because Jason was.

He’d only been in the accident because of Jason.

The hallway swam, and if Jason had had anything in his stomach he would have thrown it up. He found himself hunched over, dry heaving. A hand touched his shoulder and he jerked back like he’d been punched.

“Whoa, hey, it’s just me. You’re okay,” Ollie said, but he took a step back and gave Jason his space.

Jason fought it down, pushed the nausea and the dizziness away, like fighting through a concussion. He straightened up and edged backwards until he could lean against the wall. Cold sweat prickled under his clothes.

Ollie gave him a quizzical look.

“It was my fault,” Jason said before he could stop himself. “That he was on the road that early. I’m the reason he was in the accident.” He flattened his hands against the wall and braced himself to be hit. It wasn’t as if he didn’t deserve it.

“Bullshit,” Ollie said, startling Jason again. “It was bad timing and some shmuck who should never have been issued a driver’s license.”

Jason shook his head. “No,” he said. “This is how it always happens. This is how my life goes. I find something good, and it goes to shit.”

Ollie sighed. “Kid, I’m going to tell you something that I know Bruce never has, because he doesn’t know it himself: get over yourself.”

Jason stared at him.

“You’re not actually the antichrist,” Ollie said. “A few bricks shy of a load, maybe, but every bad thing that happens isn’t automatically your fault. Unless you pull shit like this and make it a self-fulfilling prophecy.” He jerked his thumb back towards Roy’s room. “Go talk to him. I’ll even make the girls leave the room, I’m so nice like that.”

“You hate me,” Jason pointed out. “Why are you trying to talk me into staying?”

“Because I love my kid,” Ollie said. “And for some baffling reason, he loves you.”

Jason tipped his head back against the wall and closed his eyes, suddenly exhausted. “It’s not like that,” he said. Sure, Roy had told Jason he loved him plenty of times, wasn’t shy about it, but that had been a—a brothers-in-arms kind of thing. It wasn’t...they weren’t…

They _weren’t._

“He didn’t ask me to stay,” he mumbled.

Ollie snorted. “Of course he didn’t. That’s my fault.”

Jason opened his eyes.

“Walked out on him one too many times as a kid,” Ollie said. “So did his real dad, even if it wasn’t on purpose. So did a lot of people.” He shrugged. “Do that enough times to someone, they start to think it’s their place in life to get left. And if that’s the case, why fight it?”

“That’s fucking idiotic,” Jason snapped. “It’s not about—about being _left_. He’s a good man. He’s got a _kid_. You said it yourself, about my kill count. I don’t belong in his life here.”

“Believe me, if it were my choice you’d already be on a plane back east. Or in jail,” Ollie said. “But I’m not the one trying to make his decisions for him.”

“Right.” Jason pushed away from the wall. “Thanks for the unsolicited advice, old man. I’ll be sure to call you the next time I need tips on evicting orphans, or growing a really douchey beard.”

“Why bother?” Ollie asked. “Running away from a situation because it’s hard? Looks like you’ve already got being me down pat.”

“I am _nothing_ like you,” Jason snapped.

“Sure you’re not, kid. Nothing like me...and nothing like Bruce.”

Jason reminded himself that getting into a fight with Ollie in a hospital would not help Roy, and would probably upset Lian. “Fuck you.”

“Running away, like me. Closing yourself off, like Bruce.” Ollie took a step closer. “Grow up, Jason. We might have been shitty fathers, but we didn’t raise you boys to be like us. You were supposed to be better.” He poked Jason in the chest, which normally would have earned him at _least_ a broken finger. Jason thought about Lian and held still. “So _be better_.”

Before Jason could come up with a retort, Ollie turned and walked back to Roy’s room without a backwards glance. Jason was left standing in the hall with the distinct feeling he’d just lost an argument with one of his least favorite people in the world.

Well, shit.

*

He left the stolen motorcycle where it was, now surrounded by perplexed security guards, and took a cab back to his hotel to get his stuff. He tried not to think about what Ollie had said, but the jackass had gotten into his head.

Was he really running away? Was Roy letting him because he didn’t think he deserved any better?

Which was a fucking ridiculous concept. No, Roy wasn’t perfect. He basically never shut up, and he had a list of mistakes almost as long as Jason’s in his rearview mirror, and he fell into bed with anyone who gave him the time of day no matter _how_ bad an idea it was. Jason was proof enough of that.

But he was a good friend, and a good father, and a better man than Jason could ever dream of being. Or being _with_.

Roy wasn’t in love with Jason, no matter what Ollie thought. If he loved Jason as a friend and a partner, it said more about his generous heart than anything else.

And Jason wasn’t in love with _Roy_ , because Jason was a lot of things but he wasn’t an idiot, and to spend two years away from someone he loved and then book it to the other side of the country the second he got what he wanted would be...the stupidest fucking…

“Oh, fucking _hell_ ,” Jason said out loud.

*

Jason had been sitting in front of the apartment door for over an hour by the time Roy finally came home.

Roy slowed as he saw Jason. He looked tired and drawn, and Jason didn’t want to think about how much of it was from the accident and how much was Jason’s fault. Lian was conked out against his shoulder, supported with his non-injured hand.

“Hey,” said Roy.

“Hey,” said Jason.

He pushed himself to his feet as Roy attempted to fumble for his keys with his bandaged hand. Jason held his arms out. “You want me to take her while you get the door open?”

“Oh. Uh, yeah, thanks.”

Roy handed Lian over and she slumped into Jason’s arms, limp and untroubled. Jason didn’t think he’d ever been that trusting, even when he was younger than she was now.

Roy opened the door and Jason carried Lian down the hall to her bedroom, laying her gently on her bed. “I’ll, uh, wait in the living room,” he told Roy, and stepped out, giving Roy a chance to do whatever decent fathers did. Tuck her in. Kiss the top of her head. Marvel at the miracle that she was still here, still relatively unscathed, still smiling.

A minute later Roy joined him in the living room, and Jason pretended not to notice that his eyes were a little red. “What happened to your flight?” Roy asked.

Jason glanced at his wrist, even though he wasn’t wearing a watch. “Took off about a half hour ago, I think.”

“And your business in Gotham?”

Jason cocked his head. “Come on, Roy. You know I was full of shit. Stop giving me a pass.”

Roy looked at him for a long moment, but when he finally spoke, what he said was: “I need aspirin. My wrist is killing me.”

Jason followed Roy to the kitchen and watched him take an industrial-size bottle of aspirin off of the shelf and pour himself a glass of water. He swallowed two pills, then turned to face Jason.

“So you’re full of shit,” he said. “Acknowledged. Why are you _here?_ Because as great as round one was, I don’t think I’m up for another fuck. I’ve kind of had a day.”

Jason didn’t wince, but it was a near thing. “No. I mean...I talked to Ollie. Or, really, Ollie talked _at_ me.”

Roy pinched the bridge of his nose. “Shit. I _knew_ that’s where he went. What did he say?”

“Well, he called me a lot of names. With I’d say a seventy percent accuracy rate. Maybe seventy-five,” Jason said. “And he said...he said you thought I left because of you. Because that’s what people do to you.”

Roy’s face went very guarded. It wasn’t an expression Jason saw on him very often, and it never meant anything good. “Sounds like Ollie had a lot to say.”

“I couldn’t get him to shut up. Believe me, I tried,” Jason said. “But I also thought maybe I needed to set the record straight. About why I left. Just in case he was right.”

“Fine.” Roy crossed his arms and leaned back against the counter. His face was still a closed door. “Set fast, though, because I’m getting really fucking tired here.”

Jason had lived on the streets as a child, fending for himself. He had clawed his way out of his own grave. He could muster up the courage to talk about his feelings.

 _Fuck_ , he didn’t want to talk about his feelings.

“You remember what I said when I broke up the act?” Jason asked. “That you were a hero, and I was never going to come anywhere close? That hasn’t changed. If anything, it’s worse now, or better, or—I mean, God, _look_ at you! You have a _home_ and a beautiful daughter and a family that actually wants you around and then you go out and save _lives_ out of the goodness of your heart. When I do it, it’s mostly out of spite, and don’t argue because you know it’s true.”

Roy, who had been opening his mouth, shut it. Jason kept going.

“You made me a better man,” he said. “The whole time we were together, I was kinder, I was braver, and maybe that fooled you, but underneath it all I’m still the same fucked-up son of a bitch I’ll always be. But I come to this city for three days, _three days_ that you let me into this life you’ve built, and all I want to do is burrow so deep into it you can’t cut me out, not even when you realize how bad I am for you.”

“Jason—” Roy tried.

“You’re right. I did walk away from you because of who you are,” Jason said. “I walked away because who you are is so fucking beautiful that if I didn’t leave then, I’d never be able to, and because who _I_ am is so selfish that I’m still standing here asking you to ignore your own better judgment and let me touch you again, even if I don’t deserve it, even if you hate me—”

“Jason!” Roy took two big steps and pinned him up against the fridge, his good hand on Jason’s shoulder, his face so close Jason could count his freckles. “Christ, talk about needing to shut up.”

And then he kissed Jason.

Relief swamped Jason, as heady as pure oxygen after nearly drowning. He braced himself against the fridge, magnets and crayon drawings digging into his back, and kissed Roy as viciously and greedily as he’d been wanting to since he’d woken up that morning. As he’d been wanting to for longer than he’d had any idea of it.

When they had no choice but to come up for air, Roy tipped his forehead against Jason’s and closed his eyes. Jason could feel Roy’s chest heaving against his own as he breathed, imagined he could feel Roy’s heart beating through it.

“Someday we’re going to have to talk about this self-esteem issue of yours, Jaybird,” Roy said, and it was ridiculous how much that stupid nickname made Jason feel like maybe everything was going to be okay.

“You first,” he retorted. He’d fisted his hands in the back of Roy’s t-shirt at some point and he made himself let go, smoothing the shirt down and then just petting Roy’s lean, muscled back.

“Okay, so we’re both fucked up,” Roy admitted. “It’s not like this is news.”

“It’s sort of our thing,” Jason agreed. “Could we maybe sit down? I think I’m getting a permanent imprint of a Q magnet on my ass.”

“Oh, we can’t have that. An R, maybe,” Roy said, taking a step back.

“You are horrifying.”

“I’m not the one who said—what was it? That you wanted to crawl inside my mouth and die?”

“I thought I already did that.”

They ended up sprawled on the couch, Jason’s head on the armrest, Roy’s head pillowed on Jason’s chest. Cuddling again. Jason would have to somehow get used to it, he thought, and pretended he didn’t recognize the feeling of deep contentment he got from Roy’s weight pinning him down.

His gaze fell on Lian’s little plastic table and chairs, covered in crayons and legos and the detritus of a tea party. “I don’t know how to be around kids,” he admitted. “I don’t even know any. Besides Damian, I guess, but that kid was fucked up before I got there.”

“You’re doing okay so far,” Roy said. “I mean, Lian’s got a pretty low bar. Her mom’s an assassin and her dad’s a former junkie and mercenary. And let me tell you, the tattoos do _not_ go over well at the local playgroups.”

“That’s bullshit,” Jason said, tensing up despite himself. “You’re a great dad.”

“Then let me worry about whether or not you’re a good influence, okay?” Roy said. “I’m not stupid, Jaybird. I know what you’re capable of.” His thumb stroked Jason’s ribcage through his shirt, back and forth. “I trust you not to hurt her, or let anything _else_ hurt her. We can teach you the names of all the different Disney princesses later.”

Jason huffed a laugh. “I don’t think Disney princesses are exactly my style.”

“At least four of them would absolutely cut a bitch. You’ll be fine.”

Jason let his hand rest on the nape of Roy’s neck, enjoying the way it made Roy go boneless against him. “You know, I still live in Gotham. Technically.”

He felt Roy stiffen against him, and not in a good way. So much for going boneless. “I know.”

“I also fucking hate Gotham.”

For a minute Roy didn’t say anything. Jason dug his fingers into the base of Roy’s skull, massaging away the tension, feeling him relax again by tiny degrees.

“You don’t _have_ to live in Gotham,” Roy said finally. Tentatively.

“I don’t,” Jason agreed, and another degree of tension slipped away. “I’m probably going to keep getting sucked into bullshit there. And I’ll still have to travel. But I could live somewhere else the rest of the time.” He smirked. “I could establish a west coast Bat-franchise.”

Roy laughed. “Ollie would kick your ass.”

“He could _try_.”

Jason felt him take a deep breath. “Go to Gotham if you have to,” Roy said. “Go wherever. You don’t have to change who you are. You just have to come _back_.”

“Please, they couldn’t even keep me in my grave,” Jason said, lightly, to disguise how much Roy’s faith moved him. “You think anything’s gonna stop me from coming back for another blowjob like that?”

Roy’s laugh rumbled through his chest. “Well, it’s good to know I have marketable skills.”

“You absolutely do not. You are not on the market.” Jason’s arms tightened around Roy. “You’re mine.”

A warm hand curved around his ribcage in return, and Roy tipped his head up to meet Jason’s eyes. His smile held everything Jason had never known he wanted.

“Well,” Roy said. “That works too.”

Jason had to agree.

**Author's Note:**

> [Come say hi on tumblr!](https://pluckyredhead.tumblr.com/)
> 
> ETA: I had Roy call Lian "etai yazi" a couple of times in this fic, a nickname he's used in the comics and which is translated in those comics as "little girl" in Navajo. This is not correct, as commenter DeadShips very kindly pointed out! [Please check out this comment for more accurate Navajo terms of endearment.](https://archiveofourown.org/comments/319487440)


End file.
